Suarez makes cut in Lisbon World Cup

LISBON – Filipino bowler CJ Suarez amassed 5083 pins in 24 games Wednesday to make the 24-man cut in the World Cup international finals here.

Suarez, a first-timer in the prestigious individual tourney, averaged 211.8 to rank 23rd.

Tore Torgersen of Norway continued to hold sway with 5563 pins after taking the lead Tuesday with the help of a perfect game. The Norwegian opened a 106-pin lead over England’s Steve Thornton, who posted 5457.

Guy Caminsky of South Africa checked in third with 5364, followed by Thomas Leandersson (5362), Finland’s Kimmo Lehtonen (5343), Colombia’s Andres Gomez (5337), Belgium’s Chris Van Damme (5335), Qatar’s Ahmed Shaheen (5311), San Marino’s Domenico Righi (5286) and UAE’s Mohammed Al-Qubaisi (5268).

The 24 survivors are slated to play 16 more games Thursday to determine the top eight who will advance to the quarterfinals. Twenty-four lady bowlers, including the other RP entry, Arianne Cerdena, are also scheduled to roll 24 games later Thursday.

The other remaining men’s contenders:

Todd Squire, Canada, 5233; Franz Hahn, Austria, 5225; Daniel Falconi, Mexico, 5223; Halldor Ragnar Halldorsson, Iceland, 5210; Jose Estevez, Spain, 5201; Eduardo Padilla, Nicaragua, 5182; Bill Hoffman, USA, 5170; Marco Odio, Costa Rica, 5136; Koichi Takahashi, Japan, 5128; Marcel van den Bosch, Netherlands, 5226; Oliver Blasé, Germany, 5109; Jose Vicente Lander, Venezuela, 5109; and Alan Gibbons, Ireland, 5079.

Among those who failed to make the cut were Singapore’s Andrew Fang (5076), Hong Kong’s Alfred Pang (5070), Malaysia’s Gerald Samuel (4965), Chinese Taipei’s Pai-Feng Lin (4847), Myanmar’s Ye Min Swe (4809) and Thailand’s Nikorn Onnom (4417).